


Tomorrow and Tomorrow

by devera



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-19
Updated: 2006-07-19
Packaged: 2018-01-15 00:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1283692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devera/pseuds/devera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hakkai makes a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrow and Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Post-journey and distant theories on youkai lifespans. Possibly depressing, but as people who've seen it elsewhere would know, it was a brief exercise in grief and acceptance for me at time of writing.

It shocks you to discover that he is trying to manifest the shakujou as something else. Once upon a time the weapon would have merely appeared in his hand as if it had always been there; now you can see the faint impression of this new object forming in the air, wavering energy and will, long before it becomes solid. Conspicuous in its lack of blades or chains, it is short enough and at least looks strong enough to take his leaning weight and the handle is smooth and curved and ends in the carved head of a dragon.

When you catch him doing it he just laughs, his eyes crinkling merrily at the corners in a way you came to love so many years ago you stopped counting, and says that there isn't any point in _buying_ one, is there, when he can make it himself. So practical. You agree - of course you agree, because not agreeing would only make things harder - and go to make dinner so as not to see how the effort leaves him pale and shaking.

He's proud of his accomplishment though, and it's hard to begrudge him anything even now. You don't even have it in you to chide him to slow down when Goku visits, although you find it distantly appalling the way the boy can still smile, sunshine bright and weightless, even though. He argues the same way he always did, eats with the same enthusiasm, gives you both sass, grins and talks about the sutras as if they are people, and he is like a force of nature. Of course he is; of course. For the duration of his brief stay, it's almost like old times, the fighting, the insults, the teasing, the affection, except it's different too, because once Goku is gone you have to help him to bed and you've become so subtle at feeding him your Ki now, haven't you. He barely notices at all anymore, only smiles and strokes your skin with cool, dry fingers and sighs into your hair before he falls asleep.

And sometimes you wish you could feel some sort of genuine disgust, at yourself, at the way you still want him which hasn't ever changed, at the way you can't hide it from him or hold back when he reaches for you with the ghost of his old, lascivious grin. You argue - he's hopeless, crazy, he shouldn't be allowing it, you can go without; it won't kill you, after all - but in this you are the weaker one. He is pliant, fragile, and yet the trembling, needy moans he releases, the way his body shudders under you, around you, even after a hundred such moments, a thousand, makes you forget and he bruises so easily now. Your trip to the bathroom for a towel afterward is shaky from more than just physical release. Next time, you swear to yourself, _next time_ , you'll go to town, find someone else, anyone else; it doesn't matter, it's only a biological imperative like any other. But the next time you are still weak and his beautiful mouth curving, the adoration in his eyes as he looks up at you, undoes you like nothing else can or ever, you are certain, will.

It's a power he has over you without even trying, and that was something that you'd been hiding better than anything else, from him as much as from yourself, until you return home from the markets to find him slumped pale and still in the living room chair. For a second you stumble, and the groceries in the top of the bag tumble over your cradled arms and hit the floor unnoticed. He blinks at the noise, and turns his head and smiles in warm welcome, and tells you that his arm went numb a little while ago and that he couldn't remember if you'd gone to speak to Sanzo or just gone to buy bread. Sanzo's dead, you want to say. He died an old, old man, cranky and happy almost twenty years gone and left us all behind, and the world is not the only thing lessened by his passing. But you can't speak past the trembling of your breath as you put the rest of the groceries down on the kitchen table and go to him.

And you want to be angry about it, about how unfair it is, but in the end you can't seem to manage it. If he notices he doesn't say anything, only tells you to stop fussing like a girl and urges you with a fond laugh to go back to work and stop bothering him, even when he forgets that you quit working years ago. Even so, you find yourself visiting the temple, lingering until Goku asks you what's wrong and it's actually at that point that you admit it to yourself, and that it seems was the harder part. You smile and tell him goodbye and apologise to him for all the trouble and the second last image you have of him is his eyes wide and mouth open and unsmiling. The last image you carry however is of the understanding in his face as he nods and slips around the desk to hug you and tell you he loves you and that he'll take care of everything. You knew he would; if there is one thing Sanzo taught him, although really he taught him a great many things, it's that everyone makes their own choices and lives with them or not.

Perhaps you're being childish and unreasonable, you think as you journey home again, but if not you then who? He was the one who was always like that, but his childishness now is like the lost. You can't bear to see him cry because you weren't there and he thought you'd left him, just like his brother he says, but its worse when he smiles and kisses you and tells you how beautiful you are and how happy he is. It's like a fist around your heart, once so small, so long ago. You kneel next to the bed - he has been in it more than out of it lately - and smooth his hair back, still long and soft but grey now, no longer the blood red he hated so much, and hold his thin hands in yours and if wishes were fishes, you'd drown and drown and drown.

When he sleeps, you read, long hours alone in a quiet house and it's this that you can't bear most of all. It makes you think too much, reminds you of things you thought long forgotten, little phantom pains of a beautiful smile under a tear streaked face and your own helplessness and blood. It's a relief when he's awake because the phantom is gone and you spend your time at his side, talking and fetching and touching him softly as much as you can because soon...well. His eyes are little glassy, his words slow, and he might be fading slowly before your eyes but still he knows you. He asks you, one evening curled in blankets by the fire place you installed in the living room a few years ago when nothing seemed to be keeping the cold out of his bones, what you will do if you come back as a cat and he as a dog. For a moment you have no words, none at all, because you hadn't realised he knew what you what you were going to do. He laughs at the look on your face then, that same rich, heartfelt laugh that you thank the Gods for every day, and says it probably won't make any difference. You smile and agree, and point out that you don't think it works that way anyway but he's right; it doesn't matter. You always were so different, the two of you, as to be completely the same, mismatched halves of the same whole.

When he falls asleep in your arms, burrowed against you and murmuring that he'll wait for you, it doesn't hurt, because if there is one thing you yourself learned from Sanzo, it is this: Karma is not something you resolve, it's something you make, and everyone makes their own choices and lives with them. Or not. He doesn't have one, not for much longer, but you still do, and you've already made yours.


End file.
